Next Generation Mobile Experiences (Forrester) Mobile phones and tablets are becoming the remote controls of our daily lives. Smartphones are the new digital hub for a growing percentage of consumers, while tablets are starting to rule the personal computing landscape at home and at work. Moving forward, new mobile form factors will emerge and wearable computing will gain traction. The definition of mobility is likely to evolve, but what's certain is that increasingly connected devices will enable us to interact with the world around us by leveraging a host of new technologies packaged into smarter devices (QR codes, NFC, image recognition, Bluetooth 4.0, new sensors). The physical world will be a catalyst for spontaneous interactions and for commerce via mobile devices. We're only scratching the surface of new mobile behaviors, but mobile devices will become the primary digital connection to customers.

Here's What Smartphone Users Are Doing Now With Their Phones (BI Intelligence) A decade ago, we used our mobile phones to make phone calls and perhaps to send text messages. Some advanced users checked their email and maybe did occasional tasks online. Smartphones and tablets have changed these habits dramatically. But how, exactly?

In a recent report on Mobile Usage from BI Intelligence, we analyze various usage patterns in mobile behavior and examine recent trends and developments, like:

The most popular mobile activities

How people use their phones to shop

The growth of the mobile web

How users are consuming content on their mobile devices

There are six dumbphones out there for every smartphone, and smartphones have penetrated only half of the U.S. Expect much more to come.

Why You Need A Mobile Design Company Next Year (Mod Girl Marketing) You can't ignore mobile web design anymore. If you haven't invested in upgrading your site yet, then it's certainly the big elephant in the boardroom. There are certain things you look for when choosing a mobile web design company:

Experience

Portfolios and testimonials

Impeccable customer service

Basically, the numbers don't lie. Mobile traffic accounts for 10% of all global internet traffic and it's estimated more people will surf on mobile devices than PCs in 2013, according to Gartner Research. Last year, purchases on mobile devices amounted to $6.7 billion in the U.S., but this number is on pace to reach $11.6 billion this year. Despite these fantastic numbers, many businesses do not have their websites optimized for mobile. You're missing out.

Which Mobile Optimized Platform is Right for You? (Branding Personality) Every marketer and business owner should be aware of the basic options for mobilization of a website and how to select the right one for their brand. While it can make very good sense to develop a mobile-only site for today's marketplace, keep in mind that in most cases a mobile web site isn't a completely new product, it's a re-imagination of an existing desktop site. It's very rare that you'll find yourself approaching a mobile site the way you normally would approach a desktop site. Let's look at the options:

Responsive design: benefits include economy of design, cost and SEO while negatives include reach, load times and design limitations

Understanding your options is the first step and then it's worth looking at SEO, analytics etc.

NFC Mobile Payments Market Set To Reach $100 Million By 2016... (ABI via BGR) Market research firm ABI Research predicts that dollars spent using NFC mobile payment systems will break the $100 billion mark in 2016. Payments made using the touchless technology payment tech will total just $4 billion in 2012 according to the firm, but will balloon to $191 billion annually in 2017. "Market convergence is at least two years away from reality," ABI analyst Phil Sealy said in a statement. "At ABI Research, we believe transportation and ticketing will be the first market to benefit from convergence, with 26% of all NFC handsets forecast to house a contactless ticketing application in 2017. Transport authorities will have the ability to offer additional added value services, including route planners, delay bulletins, time tables, as well as retail and loyalty, or advertising applications offering own brand or partnering/local business a platform to offer additional solutions to generate new revenue streams."

...That's Not Exactly A Fast Growing Industry (All Things Digital) It took 50 years for the credit card to become the dominant means of payment, so it shouldn't be surprising that mobile payments haven't immediately taken off. Everyone is expecting change to happen in weeks or months, but it will take time, says Osama Bedier, Google's VP of Wallet and payments. "We will have mobile payments," Bedier said. "There's a lot of ideas and not a lot of problems being solved. Credit cards already work pretty well if all you have to do is payments." Ultimately, mobile payments have to either save time, save money or both. Technology can do that. But many believe NFC will take a year or more to take off, especially now that Apple declined to embed the chips into its latest release, the iPhone 5.

What's The Impact Of Mobile On Local Business? (monetate via Marketing Pilgrim) If you own a small, brick and mortar or service business, you need to know about SoLoMo: SOcial, LOcal, and MObile. While conversion rates are still only ~1%, smartphones will influence nearly $160 billion in sales this year. Conversions may be lousy but that doesn't mean mobile isn't helping your business. Clearly, folks are using their smartphones to make local decisions. And apps are driving over 85% of the engagement. Check out the infographic:

monetate

The World Of Mobile Phones (somobile via Daily Infographic) Cell phones seem like an essential part of an American's life. And 55% of us even have a smart phone. As our society relies more and more on cellular devices for our everyday needs we will become even more helpless when we lose our phones. Check out the infographic below to see just how much the world relies on mobile phones: